Comrades, in compliance with the wish expressed by the organisers of your congress, the political position of our Republic will be the subject of my report. In this respect, the chief thing I have to deal with is undoubtedly our war with Poland, the general course of events in connection with that war, and what has consequently become revealed concerning the domestic and international position of our Republic.

You are all, of course, aware of the present gravity of our position at the front. In this connection it will be natural if we examine the circumstances that have made the situation so acute, and given it such a turn for the worse. You will of course remember that last April, when the Polish offensive had not yet begun, the line of the front lay farther eastward, in many places very much farther eastward, than at present. As it then was, the line left Minsk in Polish hands; the Poles held the whole of Byelorussia. Not only the Council of People’s Commissars, but the Presidium of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee itself&38212;the highest body in the R.S.F.S.R.—solemnly declared in a manifesto to the Polish people that they proposed peace, and rejected the idea of deciding by force of arms the fate of Byelorussia, which had never been Polish, and whose peasant population had long suffered from the Polish land owners and did not regard themselves as Poles. Nevertheless, we declared in the most official and solemn terms that we proposed peace on the basis of the then existing line, since we set so high a value on the workers who would have to lay down their lives in case of war that we considered no concessions too important by comparison. We presumed that the question of Byelorussia would be settled, not by force of arms, but exclusively through the development of the struggle within Poland. We knew that we could contribute to the liberation of Poland’s toilers, not so much by the force of arms as through the force of our propaganda.

That was last April, and you know that at first Poland replied
to our solemn offer of peace with a manoeuvre, a proposal that
peace should be signed in Borisov, a highly important strategic
point, which was in their hands. Negotiations in Polish-held
Borisov would have meant that the Poles could advance in the
south-west while we would have been prevented from advancing in
the north-west. Any other city but Borisov, was our reply. The
Poles refused. I remind you of this so that, whenever you have to
speak on this subject, you may the more emphatically stress the
point that at first we proposed peace on the basis of a line lying
farther eastward than the present one, that is, we agreed to a
peace which was most disadvantageous to ourselves.

The Poles have forced the war on us; we know that it was not
even the Polish landowners or the Polish capitalists that have
played the chief role here, since Poland’s position was as
desperate then as it is now. She has embarked on this venture in
sheer desperation. But, of course, international capital, and in
the first place French capital, was the chief force driving the
Poles into a war with us. It has so far been established that
hundreds of French officers have been serving with the Polish
army, and that all the weapons, all the financial and military
support Poland has received, have come from France.

Such are the conditions in which this war began. It marked a
new attempt by the Allies to destroy the Soviet Republic, an
attempt, following the collapse of the Yudenich plan, to crush the
Soviet Republic, this time with the help of Poland. You are
acquainted with the main events in this war with Poland, which
began against our wish. You know that at first the Poles were
successful, and captured Kiev in the south-west. Then there was a
fairly long interval in which the Red Army was able to concentrate
its forces and to start an offensive, whereupon the Poles began to
lose one point after another. They lost Polotsk, and so on. But it
was not until July that the Red Army began a decisive offensive,
which proved so successful that we effected an advance almost
unparalleled in military history. The Red Army advanced 500, 600,
and in many cases even 800 versts without a stop, and almost
reached Warsaw. Warsaw was considered practically lost to
Poland. That, at least, was the opinion of the world press. Then
the tide turned. By the time our troops had got within reach of
Warsaw they were too exhausted to press home the victory, whereas
the Polish troops supported by a wave of patriotism in Warsaw, and
with a feeling that they were now on their own soil, found
encouragement and a fresh opportunity to advance. The war, as it
turned out, had enabled us almost to rout Poland completely, but
at the decisive moment our strength failed us.

I could speak of this at greater length, but, in keeping with
the topic of my report, I must dwell on the political situation
that had developed at the time. We have seen that when, before the
April offensive, we proposed peace to the Polish Republic on terms
that were most advantageous to the Poles and disadvantageous to
us, the bourgeois press all over the world raised a hullabaloo,
and our outspoken declaration was taken as a sign of weakness. If
the Bolsheviks were proposing peace on the basis of the line then
held by the Polish troops, and if the Bolsheviks were even
surrendering Minsk, then they must surely be weak. On the outbreak
of the war, even the British monarch sent a message of
congratulations to the head of the Polish landowner
government.

On July 12, as you very likely remember, we suddenly received a
telegram from the Secretary of the League of Nations to the effect
that the Polish Government were willing to start negotiations for
peace on the basis of ethnographic boundaries, and provided the
whole of Galicia were given to Poland. An unparalleled uproar was
raised in the world press. This time they were all for peace. When
we proposed peace in April, or even earlier, in the spring of
1920, all these newspapers were silent, or else urged Poland to
fight. But when we had defeated Poland and it was Poland that was
asking for peace-to which we replied by clearly and frankly
stating our opinion that the League of Nations did not represent
any force and that we could not rely on any promise it made-they
all raised a hullabaloo and demanded that w’e should call a
halt. Now that the fortunes of war have changed, and we announced
yesterday that we were offering Poland peace on terms more
favourable than the League of Nations had proposed, on condition
peace was signed before October 5, the whole bourgeois press has
again fallen silent. They are silent about peace when the
Bolshevik’s are attacked, but raise an outcry when it is the
Bolsheviks who are attacking. And after all this, they want us to
believe that the bourgeois press wants peace. At our Party’s
conference, which ended a few days ago, we were able to hear a
report by a Polish worker, representative of one of the largest
trade unions in Poland,[2][97] who managed to get through from
Warsaw. He told us of the persecution of the workers in Poland,
how the Warsaw workers looked to the Red Army as their liberator,
and how they were waiting for the coming of the Russian Red Army,
which they regard, not as their enemy but, on the contrary, as
their friend in their struggle against the landowners and the
bourgeois oppressors of Poland. It is quite clear that Poland is
the Entente’s cat’s-paw in a new attempt to destroy
the Soviet Republic; however, when this attempt threatened to lead
to a diametrically opposite result and we were on the point of
helping the Polish workers overthrow their government, the entire
European bourgeois press turned on us. Comrade Kamenev, who
visited London, has told us here in the Bolshoi Theatre how he
daily heard ultimatums and threats from the British Government,
which was already prepared to mobilise its whole navy against
Petrograd and concentrate it at Kronstadt, allegedly to defend
Poland against us. Now that the fortunes of war have changed and
we are withdrawing from our terms everything Poland has declared
unacceptable, the bourgeois press has fallen silent. It is quite
clear that French and British imperialism is inciting Poland to
make a fresh attempt to overthrow the Soviets.

I think that this is a last attempt (and this is undoubtedly
important) at an offensive against Soviet Russia. It appears that
Poland is too closely bound up with the whole system of
international mperialism. You know that, after defeating Germany,
the Allied mperialists-France, Great Britain, America and
Japan-signed the Peace of Versailles, which, to say the least, was
far more brutal than the infamous Peace of Brest-Litovsk, over
which such an outcry was raised. But while the French, the
Americans and the British proclaimed from the house-tops that this
was a war of liberation, that its purpose was to save Europe and
the world from the barbarian Huns, as they called the Germans, to
save the world from German militarism and the German Kaiser, we
now find that the Peace of Versailles outdoes in atrocity anything
the Kaiser was capable of when he was victor. The interference of
British and French officers in economic life has proved to all the
defeated countries, to Germany and to all the countries that made
up the Austro-Hungarian Empire, that it is impossible to live
under such conditions. One of the pillars of this monstrous peace
is Poland’s cutting across Germany, since Polish territory
stretches to the sea. Relations between Germany and Poland are at
present strained to the utmost, In oppressing the German
population, the Poles have the support of the Entente troops and
officers. The Versailles Peace has turned Poland into a buffer
state which is to guard against German contact with Soviet
communism and is regarded by the Entente as a weapon against the
Bolsheviks. Through Poland and with the help of Poland, the French
are hoping to recover the tens of thousands of millions loaned to
the tsarist government. That is why, when the war with Poland
broke out, which we tried to avert even at the price of heavy
concessions, it proved td be a more direct war against the Entente
than previous wars had been. The latter, in which Koichak, Denikin
and Yudenich attacked us, were also conducted with the aid of
officers and hundreds of millions provided by the Allies, with the
aid of their guns and tanks. The previous wars were also wars
against the Entente, but they were fought on Russian territory
against Russian whiteguard officers and the peasants they had
mobilised and they could not become wars that could shake the
Peace of Versailles. That is where they differed from the war
against Poland. The war against Yudenich, Koichak and Denikin was
also a war against the Entente, but at the same time it was a war
of working-class Russia against the whole of bourgeois
Russia. When it ended in victory and when we smashed Yudenich,
Kolchak and Denikin, this was not a direct attack on the Peace of
Versailles. The reverse is true of Poland; that is what
distinguishes the war against Poland, and constitutes
Poland’s international significance.

When we were victoriously pressing our offensive on Poland, the
whole of Europe began to vociferate that they wanted peace, that
the whole world was tired of war, and that it was time to make
peace. But now that the Poles are advancing, there is no outcry
that people are tired of war. Why is that? It is because, by
defeating Yudenich, Kolchak and Denikin, we could not destroy the
Peace of Versailles; we were merely falling upon Yudenich, Kolchak
and Deni-. kin and driving them into the sea. However, in
attacking Poland we are thereby attacking the Entente itself; by
destroying the Polish army we are destroying the Peace of
Versailles, on which the whole present system of international
relations rests.

Had Poland turned Soviet, had the Warsaw workers received from
Soviet Russia help they awaited and welcomed, the Peace of
Versailles would have been smashed, and the entire international
system set up as a result of the victory over Germany would have
collapsed. France would then not have had a buffer protecting
Germany against Soviet Russia. She would not have had a
batteringram against the Soviet Republic. She would have had no
hope of recovering her tens of thousands of millions, and would be
heading for disaster even more rapidly than she now is. France is
up to her ears in debt. Once the wealthiest of money-lenders, she
now owes America three times as much as other countries do. She
is. heading for bankruptcy. Her position is hopeless. That is why
the approach of the Red troops to Warsaw meant an international
crisis; that is why the entire bourgeois press was so agitated by
it. Such was the position that, had the Red Army advanced
victoriously another few days, not only would Warsaw have been
captured (that would not have mattered so much),. but the Peace of
Versailles would have been destroyed.

Therein lies the international significance of this Polish
war. You know that we harboured no plans of conquest. I said at
the beginning of my speech that in April 1920 we stood east of
Minsk and proposed peace on those terms, if only we could save the
workers and peasants of Russia from a new war. But since war has
been forced upon us, we must fight it to a victorious finish. The
Peace of Versailles is oppressing hundreds of millions of
people. It is robbing Germany of coal, robbing her of her much
herds, and is reducing her to an unparalleled and unprecedented
state of servitude. Even the most backward sections of
Germany’s peasant population have declared that they are for
the Bolsheviks, that they are allies of the Bolsheviks; that is
quite natural, for, in its struggle for existence, the Soviet
Republic is the only force in the world which is combating
imperialism-and imperialism now means an alliance of France,
Britain and America. We are approaching the hub of the present
international system. When the Red troops approached the frontier
of Poland, the Red Army’s victorious advance created an
unprecedented political crisis. The main feature of this crisis
was that, when the British Government threatened us with war, and
told us that if we advanced any farther they would fight us and
send their warships against us, the British workers declared that
they would not permit this war. Let me tell you that Bolshevism is
spreading among the British workers. However, the Communists there
are just as weak today as we were in March, April and May 1917,
when we had one-tenth of the votes at conferences and
congresses. At the First All-Russia Congress of Soviets in June
1917, we had no more than 13 per cent of the votes. A similar
situation exists in Great Britain: there the Bolsheviks are in an
insignificant minority. But the point is that the British
Mensheviks have always been opposed to Bolshevism and direct
revolution, and have favoured an alliance with the
bourgeoisie. Today, however, the old leaders of the British
workers have begun to waver and have changed their minds they were
opposed to the dictatorship of the working class, but now they
have come over to our side. They have set up a Council of Action
over there in Britain. This is a radical change in British
politics. Alongside of Parliament, which in Great Britain is now
elected by almost universal suffrage (since 1918), there has
arisen a self-appointed Council of Action which relies on support
from the workers’ trade unions with a membership of over six
million. When the government wanted to begin a war against Soviet
Russia, the workers declared that they would not allow it, and
said they would not let the French fight either, because the
French depend upon British coal, and should this industry come to
a standstill it would be a severe blow to France.

I repeat that this was a tremendous turning-point in British
politics. Its significance to Great Britain is as great as the
revolution of February 1917 was to us. The revolution of February
1917 overthrew tsarism. and set up a bourgeois republic in
Russia. There is no republic in Great Britain, but her thoroughly
bourgeois monarchy has existed for many centuries. The workers can
vote in the parliamentary elections, but all foreign policy is
conducted outside Parliament, for it is the province of the
Cabinet. We have long known that the British Government are waging
an undercover war on Russia and are helping Yudenich, Koichak and
Denikin. We have often met with statements in the British press to
the effect that Great Britain has no right to send a single
soldier to Russia.. Who, then, voted for this measure? What act of
Parliament authorised war on Russia in aid of Yudenich and
Kolehak? There have been no such acts, and by actions like this
Great Britain has violated her own constitution. What then is this
Council of Action? Independently of Parliament, this Council of
Action has presented an ultimatum to the government on behalf of
the workers. This is a step towards dictatorship, and there is no
other way out of the situation. This is taking place in Great
Britain, which is an imperialist country with 400 or 500 million
people enslaved in her colonies. She is a most important country,
which rules the greater part of the population of the earth. The
advance on Poland has led to such a turn of affairs that the
British Mensheviks have entered into an alliance with the Russian
Bolsheviks. That is what this offensive has done.

The entire British bourgeois press declared that the Council of
Action meant the Soviets. They were right. It did not call itself
by that name, but actually that is what it was. It is the same
kind of dual power as we had under Kerensky from March 1917
onwards, a time when the Provisional Government was considered the
only government, but actually could do nothing of significance
without the Soviet of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies,
a time when we said to the Soviets: “Take over all
power.” A similar situation has now arisen in Britain, and
the Mensheviks on this “Council of Action” have been
obliged to adopt an anti-constitutional course. This will give you
some idea of what our war with Poland has meant. Though the
international bourgeoisie are still immeasurably stronger than we
are, and the British Government has put the whole blame on
Kamenev, expelled him from Great Britain, and will not let him
return, this is but an empty and ridiculous threat, for the best
defenders of the American and British capitalists, the moderate
British labour leaders-those Right Mensheviks and Right
Socialist-Revolutionaries-have joined the Council of Action, and
Great Britain is now facing a new crisis. She is now threatened
with a coal miners’ general strike. The strikers are
demanding, not only higher pay but a cut in coal prices. One wave
of strikes is following another in Great Britain. The strikers are
demanding higher wages. However, if the workers win a 10 per cent
wage rise today, prices go up 20 per cent tomorrow. Prices are
rising, and the workers see that their struggle gets them nowhere
and that, despite wage increases, they are losing, because of the
higher prices. So the workers are demanding, not only higher pay
for the coal miners but lower coal prices as well. This has led to
the British bourgeois press panicking in even greater horror than
when the Red Army entered Poland.

You know how the European crisis has affected Italy. Italy is
one of the victor powers, and when the Red Army’s successes
led to a movement in Germany and a change in British policy, the
struggle in Italy became so acute that the workers began to seize
the factories, take over the factory owners’ dwellings, and
rouse the rural population.
The present situation in Italy is far removed from any form of
class peace.

That was the course taken by the Polish war. That is why, while
realising that the Polish war was closely linked up with the
international imperialism’s entire position, we agreed to
make the greatest concessions to save the workers and peasants
from the hardships of war. Then we clashed with the Peace of
Versailles, and found that the bourgeoisie was just as incensed
against us as ever; however, we also found that the workers were
maturing daily and hourly, and that the workers’ revolution
was steadily approaching, although all too slowly as compared with
the speed of developments in Russia. It was possible to accomplish
the revolution so rapidly in Russia because it took place in
wartime. During the war tens of millions of Russian workers and
peasants were armed, and against such a force the bourgeoisie and
the officers were powerless. During the October days they
threatened to lead an army against Petrograd. We used to receive
tens of thousands of telegrams from all the fronts saying:
“We are marching against you to wipe you out.”
“Well have a try,” we said to ourselves. When
delegates arrived from each of the armies, a thirty minutes’
talk was enough to show that the soldiers were with us, and the
officers had to hold their tongues. The attempts at resistance,
the plots of Yudenich, Koichak and Denikin came later, after the
army had been demobilised. That is why the revolution could
succeed so rapidly in Russia. The people were armed. The workers
and peasants proved to be on our side to a man. In Europe,
however, the war is over. The armies have been demobilised; the
soldiers have returned to their homes; the workers and peasants
are disarmed. Developments there are slow now, but they are on the
move. The international bourgeoisie has only to raise a hand
against us to have it seized by its own workers. That is the
international significance of the war with Poland. That is the
source of the international crisis. That, too, is the source of
our new difficulties now. It was when, as you know, we lacked just
a little strength to reach Warsaw, hand over power to the Warsaw
workers, convene Soviets of Workers’ and Peasants’
Deputies in Warsaw, and say to them “We have come to your
aid”, when, after heroic efforts without parallel or
precedent in the past, our army’s strength was spent, that
the moment of our military defeat came.

We have now fallen back very far to the east. In the north we
have even lost the town of Lida; in the south we are almost on the
line we held in April 9919-the Pilsudski line. In the north we are
retreating very rapidly, and in the meantime Wrangel is making
ever new attempts to advance. He recently threatened
Ekaterinoslav, approached Sinelnikovo and got control of it. He
has now captured Slavgorod. In the east, he has captured Mariupol,
is approaching Taganrog and threatening the Donets Basin. We are
again in difficult straits, and again we see the international
imperialists attempting to strangle the Soviet Republic with both
hands: the Polish offensive and the Wrangel offensive. In fact,
Poland and Wrangel are the two hands of the French imperialists,
who are supplying the troops both of Poland and of Wrangel with
munitions. But these three forces are not getting along very well
together. France tells the Poles that they should not grab too
many resources, too much territory, because a tsarist Russia will
never let them keep it. Then she tells Wrangel that he must not
act so as to restore the power of the old landowners, for the
example of Denikin, Kolchak and Yudenich shows that when the old
landowners direct the whiteguard armies, or when their officers
command the armies, the more territory they seize, the sooner that
leads to their ruin, because in the end the peasants rise up in
revolt against them.

As long as Wrangel has a crack officer army he can rely on it;
Wrangel ’s strength lies in his possessing splendid weapons
of the most up-to-date type and a crack officer army. When he
effected a landing in the Kuban region, his army was so selected
that every company and regiment could be developed into an entire
division, because it consisted entirely of officers. But as soon
as he attempts to repeat what Kolchak, Denikin and Yudenich did in
the past, i.e., seize more territory, so as to mobilise a larger
peasant population and create a mass army, his success will at
once give way to defeat; just as the peasant army was opposed to
Kolchak, Denikin and Yudenich, so it will never march with
Wrangel’s officer army. The Warsaw worker who addressed the
Party Conference formulated it as follows: the Polish army, which
formerly consisted of youngsters (raw lads just called up for
service), has been destroyed. Men up to the age of 35have now been
mobilised; these are adults who have been through the imperialist
war, and this army, as far as the Polish landowners and
capitalists are concerned, is by no means as reliable as an army
of youngsters.

That is how matters stand with regard to the international
situation. In the war against the Entente, owing to the defeat we
have suffered at Warsaw and the offensive now continuing on the
Western and Wrangel fronts, our position is again highly
critical. I must therefore conclude my brief report by appealing
to our comrades in the leather industry and pointing out to them
that we must once again bend every effort, for the defeat of
Wrangel is now our principal task. This will call for tremendous
effort and initiative on the part of the workers, the trade
unions, the proletarian masses, and first and foremost of those
workers who are closely associated with the branches of industry
that are connected with defence. Our chief difficulty in the
present war is not manpower-we have enough of that-but
supplies. The chief difficulty on all the fronts is the shortage
of supplies, the shortage of warm clothing and
footwear. Greatcoats and boots-that is the main thing our soldiers
lack, and it is on that account that quite successful advances
have so often failed. That is the difficulty which prevents us
from rapidly utilising for a victorious advance the new units,
which we possess in sufficient numbers, but which, without
sufficient supplies, cannot be formed and cannot be of any real
combat value.

Both the leather workers’ union and this assembly, which
represents the entire proletariat in this industry, must give
their most serious attention to this. Comrades, it depends on you
to make the forthcoming offensive against Wrangel, for which we
are mustering all our forces, as rapid and successful as it can
possibly be. It depends on you, because the measures being taken
by the Soviet Government and the Communist Party are not
enough. To give real help to the Red Army men, to secure a
decisive turn for the better, and to improve supplies, the
assistance of Soviet institutions, the decrees of the Council of
People’s Commissars and the Council of Defence,[3][98] and
Party decisions are not enough: what is required is help from the
trade unions. The trade unions must realise that, despite our
repeated offers of peace, the very existence of the workers’
and peasants’ power is once more at stake. You know how this
power gained in strength after the collapse of Denikin, Kolchak
and Yudenich. You know how the grain collections improved thanks
to the recovery of Siberia and the Kuban region; you know that the
capture of Baku has now enabled us to secure over a hundred
million poods of oil, and how our industry has at last begun to
acquire the foundation on which it is possible to create stocks of
grain and bring the workers back to the factories, accumulate raw
material and provide fuel, so that the factories may be started
and economic life restored at last. But for all these
possibilities to materialise, we must at all costs put an end to
the war, and speed up the offensive against Wrangel. The Crimea
must be recovered before winter comes in the south and that will
depend on the energy and initiative of the workers themselves, and
above all, perhaps, on the energy and initiative of every Russian
leather worker and of the Leather Workers’ Union.

I appeal to you to follow the example of our Petrograd workers,
who recently, after a report by a representative of the Communist
International on the situation at the fronts, once more began to
make tremendous efforts to help the cause, again beginning with
munitions for the Red Army men, and building up the strength of
the Red Army. You know that each step taken in the rear to help
the Red Army has an immediate effect on the morale of the Red Army
men. You know that the autumn cold affects the Red Army men,
depresses them, creates new difficulties, increases the number of
sick men and results in great hardships. All aid given by the rear
to the Red Army men immediately helps strengthen the Red Army,
fortify its morale, bring down the number of sick and increase its
offensive power. At every meeting and in every workshop, every
worker must now make the slogan “Everything for the Red
Army!” the chief topic of his talks, reports and
meetings.

What we must ask ourselves is: have we done everything in our
power to help the Red Army? On this help depends how soon we
settle final accounts with Wrangel and fully ensure for ourselves
peace and the possibility of constructive work in the economic
field. (Applause.)